People of the Fertile Crescent

Sumer is important in world history because it was

• the world’s largest empire.

• the world’s first civilization.

• where the first fishing villages developed

• where human beings evolved.

Phoenicia did not have its own supply of ivory, so it traded ivory with other regions, which made ivory a Phoenician

• impossibility

• import

• natural resource

• export

What led to the conquest of Sumer?

• The fighting among city-states

• The unification of city-states

• The peace among the city-states

• The wealth of city-states

What pattern did the laws in Hammurabi’s code follow?

• Punishment, explanation

• Offense, explanation

• Punishment, offense

• Offense, punishment

Which word characterizes the soil of the Fertile Crescent?

• rocky

• rich

• Unproductive

• dry

The spread of the Phoenician alphabet to Greece and eventually to Rome is an example of

• ethnicity

• irrigation

• cultural diffusion

• conquered colonization

What city became the center of Hammurabi’s Mesopotamian empire?

• Lagash

• Ur

• Babylon

• Umma

The idea that everyone must obey the law, including powerful politicians, is found in Hammurabi’s Code and is known as the

• rules

• cuneiform code.

• rule of law

• code

Read the excerpt from Hammurabi’s Code: “If a man has knocked out the eye of a patrician

(aristocrat), his eye shall be knocked out…If he has knocked out the eye of a plebeian (commoner)…he shall pay one mina of silver. If he has knocked out the eye of a patrician’s servant…he shall pay half his value.” What does this quote say about the nature of Hammurabi’s Code?

• The law did not treat all members of society equally.

• The law’s punishments did not encourage social order.

• the law did not address private matters, such as taxes.

• The law’s punishments encouraged social order.

The term Mesopotamia refers to land between

• Uruk and Ur.

• The Arabian peninsula and the Sinai peninsula.

• Sumer and Egypt.

• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers.